


Sophistication

by Trista_zevkia



Category: Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-04
Updated: 2010-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trista_zevkia/pseuds/Trista_zevkia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman learns something and acts accordingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sophistication

A quiet evening on Watchtower Duty was a rare thing. It was also, Clark reflected, incredibly boring. Still, if you needed an alien invasion just to fight boredom, you were probably doing something wrong. A quick glance confirmed he was alone and the roster only had J’onn listed as on station. J’onn knew everything anyway, so Superman felt comfortable opening Clark Kent’s email with him around. 

Clark did use a few special protocols Batman had established for this purpose, just in case anybody ever hacked the systems. Of course, Batman had written those codes as well so any hacker that got that far might have a chance, but they would have to know what they were looking for. At any rate, Batman said it was secure and Clark believed him. A new email from Perry was marked urgent, so he opened it. A quick read and he groaned, sighed and slumped over at the same time.

“What an intriguing noise! What does it mean?” J’onn was still quite a way off but he wasn’t deaf. He was floating along the hallway toward Clark with a steaming cup of coffee. Clark almost sighed again, his boredom was that obvious.

“Clark’s been assigned to cover a charity event that Bruce was planning on attending.” He tried to be neutral about it but J’onn had heard his earlier noise.

“Are you having problems that attending such an event would exacerbate?” J’onn handed over the coffee and waited for a response.

“No, everything is fine between us, you know what I feel for him. It’s just these events, they drive me nuts. First we can’t actually go as a couple, second I’ll be Kent and he’ll be Brucie. He’ll have some bimbo on his arm that he’ll forget twenty seconds in the door so he can flirt with every pretty person there. I could almost handle that, but you know what people think. They believe him to be an idiot with the morals of an alley cat, and yet he pulls off this farce with charm and grace. Even if I was there as Superman, he would still make me feel like a country bumpkin. He’s beautiful, his clothes are always elegant and he oozes sophistication. I can’t decide if I want to take him out for a quick fumble in a broom closet or pants him in front of all those other sophisticated people. If he hadn’t done it for years before we got together, I would think he does it just because he knows the effect it has on me.” Clark sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to go on like that.”

J’onn shrugged, a gesture he had picked up from his time with the humans. “I did ask. But you never know what would happen if you told Bruce how you felt.”

“Exactly. I don’t know what that man would do, which is why I am never going to tell him.” Clark let his discomfort reach out to the telepath. “Teaching me the rules of society might be easiest, so obviously that’s something Bruce would never do. No, it’s better he never knows. You’re not going to tell him are you?”

J’onn considered for a long moment, just long enough for Clark to get worried. “I will not inform that individual of your feelings. Though I am sure you do him a disservice by not telling him yourself.”

Confident that concluded the matter, Clark moved the conversation on to other things and tried not to dread the event.

sB _Sb_ Bs

The event was even worse than Clark feared. Bruce had produced two bimbos this evening and was ‘caught’ by cameras in a compromising pose with a famous football player. The two bimbos were then seen making plans with the football player while under the watchful eye of Brucie. The word foursome was popping up all over the room and even county bumpkin Clark knew they were not talking about golf.

Brucie was soon blind drunk, even though no one ever saw him drink from his champagne flute. Unsteady on his feet, he still managed to find just the right words to make dates with four other girls and speed along two business deals before the speeches started. 

When he was called up to the stage, he had trouble finding it. The laugh that followed was indulgent of his actions. Making to the microphone, he stared at it for a while before he began to speak. Apparently he had no idea why he was up there so he started reciting a poem. People tittered and waited for his next trick. Very few were paying attention to the actual words he was saying, Clark was one of those few and he couldn’t believe his ears. 

“I wear sophisticated clothes  
I say sophisticated things  
Everything about me says  
I'm a sophistication king

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I just sit there and drool”

Clark was contemplating the word drool when Bruce moved on to the next verse, breaking into song as he did so. People were starting to listen to his words as he sang in a deep, rich voice that could have provided him with a nice career if that whole millionaire playboy thing hadn’t have worked out. 

I got sophisticated hands  
I got sophisticated feet  
A sophisticated car  
Parked on sophistication street

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I'm just a dribbling fool”

Here, Bruce found and held Clark’s eyes.

“When you look at me and you start to flirt  
I have to wipe the dribble off the front of my shirt

When you ask me what's on my mind  
All I can think to answer is... "fluh-uh"

Every muscle in his face went slack at once and Bruce really did look like the brainless idiot of the song. Regretfully, Bruce looked back at the rest of his audience, but Clark knew the song was for him only. How did Bruce know? Had J’onn broken a promise?

“I eat sophisticated food  
I breathe sophisticated air  
I run a sophisticated comb  
Through my sophisticated hair

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I'm just a dribbling... fool” 

There was scattered applause as Bruce stumbled off the stage and more than a few mean laughs. Clark Kent, ace reporter from the Daily Planet and transplanted rube, threw back his head and laughed like it was his first hit of Joker gas. Tomorrow, it would be just another weird thing Brucie did, but for the rest of the night he would be a fool. 

Clark tried to control himself, but every time he almost succeeded, the fluh-uh noise and accompanying face would reenter his mind. Finally, he made a break for the bathroom. He was almost there when a strong hand pulled him into a janitor’s closet.

“If you pants me now, the quick fumble in the broom closet could be a lot more interesting.”

And Clark wanted to, oh so bad. Instead he backed away and forced himself to ask. “How did you know? Did J’onn?”

He couldn’t even bring himself to finish that question as it was so unlike the Martian.

“Of course not, J’onn would never break a promise. That night, he was running a diagnostic on the Watchtower’s systems and found an anomaly. He asked me to stop by and look at it and went to tell you that I was on station. You never asked what he was doing, so he never told you.” Bruce’s voice was still seductive and beckoning, even as his words caused Clark to blush.

“So what was the anomaly that caused you to hear one of my last secrets from you?” Clark was asking because he felt it was important he knew what was happening with the JLA. 

Bruce shrugged as he closed the tiny distance between them. “The cameras on the monitor station were not recording audio.”

Those hands that could defuse a bomb or pulverize a bad guy also knew exactly what to do to drive thought from Clark’s brain. With a great effort he managed to ask. “If the sound was off how did you know what I was saying?” 

Bruce answered by stopping all motion and looking at Clark. Clark rolled his eyes and answered his own question, now that he was almost capable of thinking again. 

“Of course, you’re Batman, you read lips.” Clark found he no longer cared about that as much as he wanted those hands to go back to what they had been doing.“Can you read my lips in this dark closet?” He asked as he reached for favorite spots on Bruce.

“No need. I can read your mind right now.”

A statement that could have been challenged, except Bruce’s hands went back to what they had been doing a moment ago and Clark ceded the point. If Bruce promised all future events like these would involve a fumble in a closet, Clark felt he could get to like them after all.

The Sophisticated Song Lyrics by Hugh Laurie

(Yes! That Hugh Laurie. Dr. House for Americans. 

I wear sophisticated clothes  
I say sophisticated things  
Everything about me says  
I'm a sophistication king 

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I just sit there and drool

I got sophisticated hands  
I got sophisticated feet  
A sophisticated car  
Parked on sophistication street

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I'm just a dribbling fool

When you look at me and you start to flirt  
I have to wipe the dribble off the front of my shirt

When you ask me what's on my mind  
All I can think to answer is... "fluh-uh"

I eat sophisticated food  
I breathe sophisticated air  
I run a sophisticated comb  
Through my sophisticated hair

But when I'm with you  
Can't seem to find my cool  
Yeah, when I'm with you  
I'm just a dribbling... fool


End file.
